Of Cursed Lives and Almost Lost Loves
by AllTooSure
Summary: Red Swan Fic. Set in season two after Emma returns from The Enchanted Forrest. Emma notices Ruby sitting alone outside Granny's and the two have a heart to heart about the curse and the feelings between the two of them. One shot.


Her luminescent skin shone in the moonlight, a perfect contrast to the midnight black hair and ruby red highlights. Sitting there on the steps of Granny's gazing up at the quarter moon and glitter like stars, she looked like a natural extension of the Storybrooke night. So perfect was the image that Emma almost felt bad for disturbing it, but greater then that feeling was her desire to be beside the brunette. To stroke her hair or put a hand on her shoulder and pretend, even for just a moment, that Ruby felt the same way she did.

Emma had been attracted to Ruby the moment she met her, when Ruby was still the young waitress desperate to leave a small town and Emma was just a mom trying to help her kid. Before all that savior stuff and fairy tale land theories had come true. But, well Emma could tell Ruby wasn't interested in her. Her eyes were never drawn to the curves of her body like Emma's were and she seemed to focus most of her attention on the men of Storybrooke. Not in rude way, just in a way that made her attraction to men clear and her lack of attraction to Emma unable to ignore. Still, sometimes it was nice to pretend.

As Emma approached the werewolf, trying to keep her eyes off of the beauties red, red lips, she noticed the woman's heaving shoulders and the trail of tears running down her face. Feelings of attraction pushed aside for a new found concern, Emma sat down beside Ruby and placed an arm across her back.

"Ruby, are you okay?"

Ruby didn't look up at Emma at the sound of her voice. Instead she bit her lip and bobbed her head up and down. For a moment Emma didn't think Ruby would answer her but then a a squeaky and unsure voice seemed to force itself outside of her throat.

"Can..can I ask you something? Does it count as losing your virginity if it wasn't really you? If it was something else inside your body?"

Emma became rigid and awkward at that. The fairy tale stuff was still new to Emma but that wasn't really what would the sheriff freeze up. She wanted to be there for Ruby, she wanted be the hero she should be, but she didn't think she could stand hearing the girl of her dreams talk about her sex life.

"Uh... is this about Regina's curse." She managed to say, focusing on the part of the conversation that made her feel the least worthless.

It wasn't much but for the first time since Emma had sat down, Ruby looked up at Emma and nodded her head.

"I have all these memories, of all these encounters I had, of all these guys I've slept with .. but none of them are real. None of them were me. And.. and it's not like I am some kind of prude, no I guess the curse made sure of that," She added with a bitter smile and a flick of her eyes that made Emma melt on the inside. "but in the Enchanted F... back there..things were different and I always imagined losing my virginity to someone... special. I know it's stupid but ugh. Do you wanna know how Ruby Lucas lost it. In the back of an R.V under a blanket trying to keep it quiet so the guy driving wouldn't hear it."

Emma watches Ruby as once again she looks down, staring at her shoes and exhaling with purpose, before chuckling darkly at the memory and running her fingers through her hair.

And Emma really doesn't know how to deal with, because this, this emotion stuff, it's exactly what Emma has been avoiding all these years. And yet at this moment, the thought of avoiding having this conversation with Rub seems far more dreadful then staying. The silence is growing worse and Ruby is starting to shift, and Emma doesn't want it to end like this. With her sitting their unable comfort yet another person she loves so she says the first thing that comes to her mind and hopes it makes things better.

"Well if it helps, I lost mine in on school camp with a bunk mate in a river boat. It was wet, and not in a good way, and cold but it .. it doesn't mean anything. No one enjoys their first time."

Ruby doesn't look up at her but mumbles a quick reply and settles in her spot on the hard stairs once again.

"Yeah, but at least for them they get to choose what circumstances it happens under"

And in that moment Emma hates Regina. She hates everything Regina is and everything she has done to the people Emma cares about. All the moments Regina stole in her quest for vengeance against a child. And worse it the fact that Emma knows that even if Regina was right here, she wouldn't care about damage she caused because even now with the curse gone she was closer to her happy ending then she was in The Enchanted Forrest.

"Do you want to know what one of the worst parts is. I've got memories of sleeping with so many people and all of them, without exception, were guys."

Emma coughs, not sure if Ruby meant that the way it sounded. Because it sounded like, well sounded like Ruby was interested in girls and if tht was the case, maybe just maybe, she was interested in her.

"Of course, Regina would assume that everyone enjoyed the D as much as she does. What she didn't, what she didn't care to write into her little curse, is that Peter was the exception not the rule. Everyone I liked before him" Ruby stopped for a second her eyes running over Emma body "And everyone I liked since has been a woman."

Pulls of adrenaline rush at Emma's head. Because did she really just look at her like that? The same way that Emma has looked at her for months now. Could she really be this lucky? Millions of thoughts rush through Emma's head and her mouth starts talking before she even knows what she is saying. Her hands flailing about, like the air is water and she is trying to splash it away from her face.

"Ruby.. Red..uh does Mary Margaret know? Not like that. Stupid question. Um Do you.. Have you noticed that I..I mean..

"Oh, I noticed. Even my cursed self noticed, subtly not your strongest suit. And to answer the question I know you're dying to ask. Yes. Yes I feel it too. Yes I want your lips on mine as much as you do. Yes I dream about the touching and the gentle stroking and the look of your soft blonde curls scrawled across my black bed sheets. Emma."

Emma didn't hear Ruby's next words because she was running her tongue against the girls lips and smashing their mouths together with unrivaled passion. Her hands ran across her body and underneath the waitress white pressed shirt, feeling the soft outline of her stomach and holding her sides, like she had wanted to do since the moment they had met.


End file.
